Health Education Resources

Details

Category: Health Education Resources

Alzheimer's & Brain Awareness Month is observed every June to raise awareness, promote brain health, and support research and caregiving for Alzheimer’s and other dementias.  

Purpose and Significance

Alzheimer's & Brain Awareness Month, established in 1983 to educate the public about Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, encourage early detection, and highlight the importance of caregiving and research support. The month emphasizes that brain health is vital at every age, and adopting healthy habits may reduce the risk of cognitive decline.

Understanding Alzheimer's and Dementia 

Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia, a general term for memory loss and other cognitive abilities serious enough to interfere with daily life. Alzheimer's disease accounts for 60-80% of dementia cases.

Alzheimer's is not a normal part of aging. The greatest known risk factor is increasing age, and most people with Alzheimer's are 65 and older. Alzheimer's disease is younger-onset Alzheimer's if it affects a person under 65. Younger-onset can also be referred to as early-onset Alzheimer's. People with younger-onset Alzheimer's can be in the early, middle or late stage of the disease.

​
Alzheimer's worsens over time. Alzheimer's is a progressive disease, where dementia symptoms gradually worsen over a number of years. In its early stages, memory loss is mild, but with late-stage Alzheimer's, individuals lose the ability to carry on a conversation and respond to their environment. On average, a person with Alzheimer's lives four to eight years after diagnosis but can live as long as 20 years, depending on other factors.

Ways to Promote Brain Health

We are at a turning point in what we know about brain health — and the actions you take today can make a meaningful difference for you. Positive, everyday actions can make a difference in brain health, even lowering the risk of cognitive decline and possibly Alzheimer's and dementia. Incorporate some or all of these habits into your life to help maintain a healthy brain. Take charge of your brain health today — it's never too early or too late to start. Science shows that adopting healthy habits may reduce the risk of cognitive decline and dementia. Incorporate some or all these 10 Healthy Habits for Your Brain into your life and share them with someone you know.

Source:  Alzheimer's Association

Details

Category: Health Education Resources

"Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life..." — Genesis 2:7

May is Mental Health Awareness Month—a time to recognize that emotional wellness, mental wellness, and spiritual wellness matter.

Many of us live carrying layers of stress—personal pain, survival mode, and the weight of what is happening around us. Sometimes our bodies stay on guard so long that we begin holding our breath without even realizing it. We breathe from our chest rather than deep in our diaphragm because our nervous system has learned to stay on high alert rather than relaxed.   This is not weakness.  It is the body’s attempt to protect us.

Over time, this can contribute to tension, anxiety, fatigue, irritability, sleep disturbances, and emotional overwhelm.

Yet God designed our bodies with a built-in pathway toward calming and restoration.

💛 Understanding the Breath and the Body

Place one hand on your chest and the other on your abdomen.  As you breathe, notice which hand moves most.

If the chest rises more than the abdomen, you may be breathing primarily from the chest—a pattern commonly associated with stress and nervous system activation. Diaphragmatic breathing, where the abdomen gently rises, encourages fuller oxygen exchange and helps signal safety to the body.

Deep breathing activates the vagus nerve—the body’s built-in calming system—and helps move us from fight-or-flight toward regulation, restoration, and rest.

The vagus nerve is part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps regulate heart rate, digestion, emotional regulation, and the body’s ability to recover after stress. When activated through slow, intentional breathing, it sends a message throughout the body:  "You are safe enough to soften."

💛 Breathing Exercise for Regulation and Peace

Try this simple breathing exercise:

• Place one hand on your chest
  • Place one hand on your abdomen
  • Slowly inhale through your nose for 4 counts
  • Allow the abdomen to rise first
  • Hold gently for 4 counts
  • Slowly exhale through your mouth for 6 counts
  • Repeat 3–5 rounds

Mental health matters. Rest matters. Healing matters.

Sometimes healing begins not with doing more—but with reconnecting to the very breath God first gave us. Because healing begins when the body no longer feels it has to fight alone.

Resource: Different types of breathing exercises (1) Daily Breathing - YouTube

Submitted by:

Rochele Henderson, Registered Associate Marriage Family Therapist

Axis Mundi Center for Mental Health

Details

Category: Health Education Resources

The Healing Power of Connection in Black Community Spaces

There’s a certain kind of exhale that happens in familiar spaces. The barbershop chair turning toward the mirror. The steady rhythm of a weekend run club. The group chat that’s been alive for years. Before anyone names it as mental health support, something regulating is already happening. Black community mental health often focuses on therapy, but for many Black folks, healing has never lived only inside therapy offices. It has always lived in community.

Why Community Matters for Black Mental Health

As Nekolas Milton, PsyD, a psychological associate at Deeper Than Color, explains, “We are social beings. We are communal beings.” Because of this, he encourages people to connect with others based on the activities they already enjoy. Spaces like barbershops, fitness groups, book clubs, and gaming communities often provide real emotional benefits: being seen, feeling understood, and experiencing belonging in ways that are culturally familiar and accessible.

At the same time, Dr. Milton also emphasizes that growth sometimes requires stepping outside our usual circles. Being “comfortable with being uncomfortable” might mean trying a new group or joining a different kind of community.

Building Healthy Community Spaces

Dr. Milton also names something that can quietly undermine these spaces: competition and comparison. When we enter community environments sizing each other up or treating connection like a performance, the benefits shrink quickly. As he reminds us, not everything has to be a competition, and comparison can easily steal the joy that makes these spaces healing in the first place.

Part of using community well is being intentional about why you’re there and approaching these spaces as places for growth, learning, and mutual support rather than judgment or competition.

Community Support vs. Therapy: What’s the Difference?

Importantly, despite the social and emotional benefits of community groups, they are not the same as professional therapy. Dr. Milton highlights that one key difference is the directionality of relationships in non-therapy social settings. As he explains, friendships and communal spaces are typically bi-directional. Everyone shares and everyone supports one another.

Therapy, by contrast, creates a rare unidirectional space that is fully centered on you. As Dr. Milton puts it, therapy offers dedicated time where you don’t have to manage anyone else’s needs, perform strength, or balance the emotional exchange. For many individuals who are used to pushing outward and staying in motion, that kind of focused space can be transformative.

Resources

Looking for mental health support in Alameda County? Need a therapist who gets you without having to code-switch? Here, you will be able to find culturally relevant care, support, events, and more. These resources are created for Black residents of Alameda County. They’re local, accessible, and culturally relevant.

• Alameda County Behavioral Health Department
• Beats, Rhymes, and Life
• Black Girls Mental Health Collective
• Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency (BOSS)
• Create the Space
• Deeper Than Color
• Felton Institute
• Greater New Beginnings
• Healthy Black Families
• Kingmakers of Oakland
• Pathways to Wellness
• PEERS
• Pursuit of Peace Painting
• PranaMind
• Roots Community Health
• THUG Therapy

Source: Outside Feelings – Mental Health Thrives in Community

Details

Category: Health Education Resources

• Early and middle childhood (birth-11 years old): Mental health in childhood includes reaching developmental and emotional milestones and learning healthy social skills and how to cope when there are problems. Children who experience good mental health have a positive quality of life and can function well at home, in school, socially, and in their communities.
• Adolescence (12-17 years old): Adolescence is a unique and formative time when many health behaviors and habits are established and carry over into adult years. Adolescence is also a time of important developmental changes. Physical, emotional, and social challenges, including exposure to poverty or violence, can make adolescents vulnerable to mental health problems.
• Young adulthood (18-26 years old): Early adulthood can come with major transitions such as entering college and the workforce, securing housing, or starting a family. Positive mental health and well-being in young adulthood can help young people meet these transitional changes successfully.
• Middle adulthood (27-64 years old): In middle adulthood, adults may face life stressors related to jobs, parenting, caregiving, and relationships.
• Older adulthood (65+ years old): As people age, they may experience life changes that impact their mental health, such as retirement, coping with a serious illness, or losing a loved one. Some may experience feelings of grief, social isolation, or loneliness.